Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

“Dawkins” joke on comic Web site spreads cultural familiarity with terms

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Further to: Paul Nelson: ID in Brazil (Brazilians, if you want the freedom to consider evidence rather than ideology, you probably must fight to keep it.)

Comedian Stewart Lee offers a comic Web site a joke dated (April 5, 1968):

I don’t know if I’m the right person to be doing jokes about religion; in the past few months, I’ve become religious, I’ve started to believe in god, creationism and intelligent design, and the reason that I now believe in god and creationism and intelligent design is because of Professor Richard Dawkins. Because when I look at something as complex and intricate and beautiful as Professor Richard Dawkins, I don’t think that just could’ve evolved by chance! Professor Richard Dawkins was put there by god to test us, like fossils. And facts. Series 1 Episode 6: “Religion”

What I find interesting about this joke is that it assumes broad cultural familiarity with many terms and at least one individual in the ID controversy.

Of course the joke misrepresents the controversy over the origin of information and design in nature.

Anyone with this guy’s baggage about life must necessarily do that. He probably wouldn’t understand an accurate statement. But he familiarizes people with the terms, and that always helps.

See also: A little more background on E.O. Wilson calling Dawkins a “journalist” (Still not clear? No, because nature just doesn’t fit into either of these guys’ boxes, really. This still feels like a moment of Darwinism in decline.)

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Comments
God, Immanuel Kant, Richard Dawkins, and the Quantum - Antoine Suarez - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQOwMX4bCqk&index=1&list=UUVmgTa2vbopdjpMNAQBqXHwbornagain77
November 23, 2014
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There they go again, assuming the existence of Dawkins just so as to prove the existence of God: :) The Dawkins Delusion - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QERyh9YYEis Even Dawkins, if he were ever honest to his materialistic premises, will tell you that he does not really exist a person and therefore cannot be used as proof for God: But then halfway through this peroration, we have as an aside the confession that yes, okay, it’s quite possible given materialist premises that “our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” At which point the entire edifice suddenly looks terribly wobbly — because who, exactly, is doing all of this forging and shaping and purpose-creating if Jerry Coyne, as I understand him (and I assume he understands himself) quite possibly does not actually exist at all? The theme of his argument is the crucial importance of human agency under eliminative materialism, but if under materialist premises the actual agent is quite possibly a fiction, then who exactly is this I who “reads” and “learns” and “teaches,” and why in the universe’s name should my illusory self believe Coyne’s bold proclamation that his illusory self’s purposes are somehow “real” and worthy of devotion and pursuit? (Let alone that they’re morally significant: But more on that below.) http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/the-confidence-of-jerry-coyne/?_r=0 Is Metaphysical Naturalism Viable? - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzS_CQnmoLQ +++++++++++++ Of humorous political note: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/snls-obama-shoves-the-schoolhouse-rock-bill-down-the-capital-steps/bornagain77
November 23, 2014
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